Contenu du sommaire : Les conventionnels

‪The authors, the editors of the Archives Parlementaires (Première série), describe the eventful history of this collection founded a hundred and fifty years ago. At a time of the digitalization of large documentary collections, the authors underscore the highly diversified « periods » of this source compiled by its editors, first by librarians and civil servants of the Chamber of Deputies, then by historians of the French Revolution, concerned as these were, by the uniformity of the series. ‪The authors show how the « colonne vertébrale » of this construction, the report, is of doubtful reliability beginning in Thermidor an II. ‪The analysis of this post-thermidorian construction until the turning point of the months of Brumaire and Frimaire an III marked by its exceptional nature because of the trial of the deputy Carrier, posed an essential epistemological problem in the political construction – unmistakenly partisan. ‪

‪The increasing use of the word « mountain » or « montagne », beginning in October 1792, reveals a plan for the organization of public space based on the publicity of debates, the creation of networks among deputies and citizens, and the defense of principles linked to the resistance to oppression. ‪Such usage was first employed by some deputies on the Left who frequented the Jacobin club to differentiate the political line of the Brissotins, particularly the opposition between Paris and the departments. Introducing this term in the Convention during the trial of the King, these same deputies were accused of using it to constitute a faction. They responded by multiplying the references of their lofty point of view, and about their defense of the « People». A transfer took place from November onwards, when the Parisian sections fraternized with the fédérés from the departments then in the capital. Without pronouncing the word, systematically, they nonetheless clung to the practice by developing fully the unifying usages that emerged in the successive patriotic festivals on January 1793. Together, they affirmed the establishment of the Republic, and thus rallied the deputies of diverse political tendencies.

‪In this article, I analyze the relationship between choice and political action, as well as discourse by considering discourse itself as a form of action. I will focus on the history of the political labels, « montagne », « gironde » and « sans culottes » that appear to belong to a complex system of labeling used by these groups, themselves, as well as by others. Once accepted, these words were used by all the political actors. It goes without saying, moreover, that certain notions such as the apology for « poverty», and that of « mediocrity» are not exclusively Montagnard. Yet, the Mountain did distinguish itself by certain expressions, as the invitation to «républicaniser le commerce », demonstrates.‪

‪Between 1793 and 1794, the National Convention purged a considerable number of representatives from its midst. ‪Accused of political crimes, Girondin, Dantonist, and, finally, Robespierrist deputies were arrested, imprisoned, and frequently sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal and sentenced to death : « The Revolution devoured (not only) its children », but destroyed also its principal leaders and an important part the republic's new political élite. François Furet regarded these purges of politicians as the direct consequences of a Jacobin and terrorist ideology that perceived plots everywhere and insisted on the necessity to « regenerate » the body politic even amongst the representatives of the people. This theory, however, does not explain the continuation of the politics of purging at the Convention long after the Robespierrists' fall. Why did more than 100 Conventionnels become the victims of a new arrest wave after the Terror ? The aim of this article is to identify continuities between the successive purges of Conventionnels during the Terror and the Reaction, and as such, between the politics of purging of those two periods.

‪The article examines the role of the wives in the context of the French Revolution, specifically during the National Convention. ‪By studying the place that deputy's wives held during the particularly passionate and conflictual politics of the period of the Convention, it not only broaches the question of the entourage of those elected to public office, but it also conceptualizes the question of the « space » that the wives might occupy by themselves. It is important not to place them automatically in the role of dependency, but rather to study how certain among them might obtain a much-demanded equality, and in the course of this acquisition by a married women, develop their own political initiative. These political actions in the public space afforded by « the wife of » that I am examining here by the example of Adélaïde Guéritault, the wife of the deputy from the department of the Vienne, Francois Piorry, permits an understanding of the way that a social reading of the revolutionaries combines with prolonged familiarity as the agent of interdependency and co-responsibility, which for a longtime, restricted possible political expression of the « wives of ».

In the session of September 21, 1792, Collot d'Herbois proposed the abolition of the monarchy. ‪After some debate, the proposal was unanimously accepted, the reservations of Quinette having aroused disapproving murmurs. The transition to the Republic, however, created a vacuum, and not only because the executive power had to be reconstructed. In these new circumstances, would the president of the Convention retain his same role, the same powers, and the same image of his predecessors ? To study the ninety-one deputies that at one time or another occupied the presidency of this revolutionary assembly involves not only examining their social origins, their convictions, their powers, but also considering the means these men possessed to ensure that debates remained orderly and calm.

‪At the time that the Convention was drawing to a close, and the decree of the Two-Thirds applied, the deputies had to be counted, which led them to record their etat-civil, their family and their social status. ‪Confronted by attacks from royalist circles, they also felt obliged to prove their « vertu », and they decided in vendémiaire an IV to make public the details of their revenue and the value of their estates. These lists, especially the second category, are incomplete – the leading orators of the tribunes showed themselves to be exceptionally discreet in this respect. This says a great deal about the consequences of political purges that gradually called into question the vote of 1792, and destabilized the departmental deputations. With these lists, it is possible to establish a sociology of the Convention, including a hierarchy and structure of wealth. Such information is not based exclusively on land, but also on financial investments, and on the long-standing practice of financial exchanges and transfers of capital, even before the opportunities afforded by the sale of national properties. The collective family portraits that emerged from these lists are highly informative about the ages, the burdens of celibacy, the sexual divisions and roles, the shared political and monetary misery when the inflation of the Year Three made life in Paris extremely difficult.

‪The Amnesty Law of 12 January 1816, which perpetually excluded from France regicide deputies who rallied to Napoleon during the Hundred days, compelled the authorities of the Restoration to undertake within a few weeks a major work of historical investigation and memory about the Revolutionary pasts of former deputies of the National Convention. ‪These members, from now on subject to permanent surveillance, found themselves not only prisoners of their pasts, but also prisoners of politics (all their actions, all their movements, all their associations were analyzed through the prism of a political plot). The implications of this « pathological memory » of the Restoration, that affected those deputies condemned to exile, as well as those who benefited a priori from a royal pardon, are far from being purely theoretical. This article examines the nature, the meaning, and the consequences of this unappeased memory of the Convention by analyzing specifically the careers of former deputies from the Ariège, the Aude, and the Pyrénées-Orientales from 1815 to 1830

‪The 128 letters from the deputies of the department of the Finistère – Claude Blad, Jacques Guermeur and at times even the entire deputation – to their fellow citizens from the beginning of the Convention until the end of the Year Two form an interface showing the relationship between each of these persons who were widely separated geographically. ‪This correspondence currently being published illuminates the relationship between Paris and the provinces, the make-up of political identities in the Assembly, as well as parlementary strategies, sociabilities, and the daily life of the deputies. It shows the means by which information was transmitted, and the role of emotions in politics. And it clarifies, above all, the process of politization of the voters and those elected to public office. The correspondence revises the simplistic view that political initiative emanated from Paris towards the provinces, the deputies allegedly more politicized than their electorate, who by its ignorance and credulity were easily open to manipulation by those in public office.